There are not too many drugs that improve overall survival in prostate cancer.  Right now, the list is pretty short: Taxotere.

So the announcement that researchers have survival improvement with a new drug, cabazitaxel, is pretty exciting for us oncologists.

It's easy to become discouraged, but once in a while we get something to be happy about.  Today is one of those moments.

I recently had a health journalist interview me about the new guidelines for mammography under 50.

You may recall a storm of controversy was touched off in December 2009, when the US Preventive Services Task Force recommended that mammography begin at 50.  Sarah Palin went so far as to compare these recommendations to "death panels" under health care reform.  The controversy died down, and health care reform legislation was rewritten to ensure access to mammographic screening.

NEJM has a pair of papers this week about two new drugs for multiple sclerosis: cladribine, which I use as a chemotherapy drug, and fingolimod, which is an immunosuppressive drug affecting lymphocyte function.

Diabetes is the most frequent cause of kidney failure accounting for nearly 45 percent of new cases in America. Centers for Disease Control have revealed that over 17 million Americans have diabetes. Diabetes is also considered as the number one cause of chronic kidney disease (CKD). Patients with type 2 diabetes once known as non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus or adult-onset diabetes are at an immense risk of acquiring kidney disease.

Heart failure is a chronic disease which manifests as fluid retention shortness of breath and lack of energy.  There is no cure now and patients tend to have declining heart function and increasing symptoms over time.  Doctors are able to manage the illness on a chronic basis to mitigate symptoms  with medications and procedures. Approximately 5 million Americans are believed to have been suffering from this disease.

Anxiety can tend toward the positive if you are at risk for type 2 diabetes. Of 204 patients with type 2 those who were inclined to more anxious mind sets were diagnosed earlier with the disease than their more mellow counterparts and as such tend toward a better control of the disease since it was diagnosed earlier after onset. The relationship between anxiety and type 2 early diagnosis was particularly strong in the younger patients since it is not something they are normally screened for routinely.

In what has been called by Medical News Today "a significant breakthrough in the fight against two of the world's deadliest cancers" scientists in the US have mapped out the complete genetic blueprint of more than twenty thousand genes that are involved in 24 pancreatic cancers and 22 brain cancers. The genetic mapping includes not only the single gene mutation but also the pathways which connect them and which help to keep the tumors growing and developing.

Healthday News reports that older patients particularly those in the 80 year old range will have a greater functional recovery if their daytime sleep is minimized as reported by new studies.The functional recovery of the older patient was lessened when they slept during the day while in the rehabilitation period.